Village feasts should go dark if neighbouring areas experience a power cut while air conditioning units should cool to no lower than 24°C.
These are just two of the suggestions made by the consumer representative on the Malta Council for Economic and Social Development, aimed at helping avoid another series of devastating power outages.
Catherine Camilleri argues that switching off the lights at village feasts in case of a neighbouring outage would reduce the load on the grid in the area and reduce the risk of further power cuts.
This would save vulnerable people from the unbearable heat while others are enjoying the feast.
Catherine Camilleri“Does it help the electrical grid to have certain towns all lit up on several nights for a festa,” she asked.
“Would the electrical grid be less loaded and at less risk of developing faults if such decorative lights were reduced?”
Camilleri submitted her suggestions during the meeting on energy and electricity held last month between Prime Minister Robert Abela and MCESD stakeholders.
She urged the government and stakeholders to take immediate, medium and long-term energy solutions seriously to address both global warming and the electricity grid’s malfunctions.
In the immediate term, the government should enact regulations stipulating that, for cooling, air conditioning systems must not be set lower than 24°C, Camilleri suggested.
The government should embark on a campaign to explain to the public the environmental and practical benefits of temperature regulation.
The government imposed air conditioning temperature limits for the public sector last year, instructing its entities to set the air conditioning at a minimum of 24°C when cooling and no higher than 21°C when heating, with an exception for hospitals.
'Switch off lights on public, commercial buildings'
She also suggested that most lights on public and commercial buildings should be required to be switched off at a certain time.
The same should happen on roads that have light bulbs every few metres and are unnecessarily overlit at night. Some bulbs should be switched off intermittently, she said.
Simply switching to LED bulbs was not enough and the most efficient solution was to switch some of them off completely, Camilleri said.
Malta suffered a series of long power cuts last month when the country was hit by a scorching heatwave with temperatures reaching a maximum of 42.7°C.
It is unclear whether switching off unnecessary lights in some parts of the country, as Camilleri is suggesting, would have avoided power cuts in other parts.
Enemalta said the power cuts were caused when the excessively hot temperatures damaged its underground cables, some of which date back to the British era.
“It’s not just the hot temperature that melts cables,” Camilleri insisted.
“Wires heat up as electrical demand surges and that is another major risk for power outages.”
Camilleri, who represents consumers on the MCESD’s civil society committee, told Times of Malta the government should also bring experts in health, civil protection, water and electricity services and the police to formulate a national emergency plan.
This would be a series of rules and measures – like the ones proposed – that automatically come into force in the event of weather calamities such as a heatwave.
She also suggested better refrigeration at the farmer’s market to reduce food waste.
And, even with all of this implemented, hardly enough would have been done, according to Camilleri.
58 per cent of agricultural land grows fodder for animals
The government, she said, should invest in longer-term solutions as well.
It should do studies on the impacts of climate change, aimed at maximising rainwater harvesting, boosting energy efficiency, increasing national wealth without a rise in the tourist or resident populations, increasing food production and protecting the fertility of the soil, among other things.
“Do we want to continue using 58 per cent of agricultural land in Malta to grow fodder for animals?
"As a nation, we need to evaluate whether we want to use more than half of our very limited agricultural land to grow food for animals or whether we want to assist animal farmers to switch to growing crops that directly go to feed the ever-increasing population,” she said.
“Livestock takes up nearly 80 per cent of global agricultural land but produces less than 20 per cent of the world’s calories and less than 40 per cent of proteins. So, rewarding farmers to switch from rearing animals or growing animal fodder to growing crops for human consumption makes a lot of sense.”
Camilleri also said Malta needs to exert some pressure on the wealthiest and most powerful 20 countries in the world – known as the G20 – which between them generate over three-quarters of emissions.
“Malta must speak out and rally other nations to put sufficient pressure on the G20 countries to reduce their carbon emissions by about 55 per cent from 2010 emission levels over the next few years.
“Unless radical emission reductions are undertaken internationally, Malta and some other 180 countries worldwide will increasingly suffer more severe climate damage and effects.”